Meet the Grandparents
by SweetDeamon
Summary: "Because it wasn't during every perfectly normal family dinner that, in between passing your husband the dishful of roast potatoes, the two of you informed your guests that they were in actual fact going to become grandparents for the first time. Especially when you had barely begun to grasp the concept entirely yourself..." AU. TLOC & RLNT. "Meet The..." 'ficverse One Shot.


_Note: Hello once again everybody, this is **Meet the Grandparents**, which is a response to the most recent poll that I posted on my profile! This is a one shot set in the "Meet the..." 'ficverse, and if you want to know precisely where it fits amongst the other stories** you can see a chronological list of the stories on my profile. **I must confess that this story in particular, unlike many of the others, **does not stand alone** particularly well; for example those unfamiliar with the nature of our muggle protagonist are unlikely to fathom any humour in the story's closing lines! _

_**This story is dedicated to my dear friend Trixie**, who amuses me whilst I am studying, and who will no doubt amuse me even more when I return to University soon and am studying far harder than I am right now! _

_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. _

Meet the Grandparents

"Daniel?"

"No."

"Benjamin?"

"No."

"What about...Henry?"

"Maybe...where did you leave that tablecloth? It's not in the cupboard..."

"We could call him John, you know, after my grandfather..."

"Yes, but where's the tablecloth, Ted?"

"What if he isn't a he? What if it's a she?! What if it's a girl, what're we going to call..."

At long last Caroline Lupin reached to fling the tea towel she was holding down upon the dining table, rounding on her husband with wide eyes.

"Teddy for goodness sake!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in exasperation at the sight of him lying sprawled upon the sofa. "Put that book down and start helping! They'll be here any time soon and we haven't even laid the table yet!"

Teddy Lupin gave a heavy sigh, but obediently reached to toss the Bumper Book of Baby Names down onto the floor, before getting heavily to his feet. Snatching up his wand from the coffee table he took a few steps towards the bottom of the stairs, cleared his throat meaningfully and muttered:

"Accio tablecloth." As the distinct sound of fluttering material sounded from somewhere above, he turned to grin broadly at his wife and ask:

"Which would you prefer?"

As she set about wiping the table down with a damp cloth, Carrie gave a vaguely irritated huff.

"There's only one tablecloth, Ted..." she began impatiently, only for Teddy to interrupt:

"No, I mean the baby! Which would you prefer, a boy or a girl?"

"That's at least the millionth time you've asked me that today, you know." Carrie informed him wearily, and Teddy opened his mouth to reply, only to be cut off abruptly by a sudden blur of white streaking through the air down the stairs...

_Thwack!_

As she watched her husband stumble backwards as the summoned tablecloth struck him square in the face, Carrie winced. Glancing at the clock that lay ticking incessantly upon the wall, she stomped over to Teddy's side, reaching to snatch the tablecloth up from where it had landed upon the floor with a muttered:

"Give it here for goodness sake! We've got under half an hour!"

"I don't see what the big fuss is all about." Teddy grumbled, reaching to rub a hand across his face with a slightly embarrassed frown. "It's just dinner with Mum and Dad. We do it all the time..."

"It is _not_ just _dinner with Mum and Dad_!" Carrie snapped, flinging the tablecloth down upon the table with a furious scowl. "And we do _not_ do it all the time!"

It was utterly unbelievable, Carrie thought furiously as she set about spreading the tablecloth across the table, pausing to snap at Teddy to fetch some cutlery, that Teddy could think of this evening as being a normal dinner with his parents.

Of course it had started off normally enough. Carrie and Teddy had popped over to Remus and Dora's house for a cup of tea and as she and Dora had been stood in the kitchen, piling biscuits onto a plate and boiling the kettle, Carrie had simply wondered:

_How do you fancy dinner at ours on Friday?_

And, perfectly normally, Dora had smiled brightly and asked:

_Seven o'clock like usual, is it? _

And, as usual, Carrie had smiled back and agreed:

_Yes, how does that sound?_

And Dora, as she always did when her daughter-in-law made such a suggestion, had said:

_Sounds great, love. Seven it is! We'll bring pudding. _

There. A perfectly normal invitation. To a perfectly normal family dinner.

Except it wasn't going to be a perfectly normal family dinner. Oh no, it wasn't going to be perfectly normal at all...

Because it wasn't during every perfectly normal family dinner that, in between passing your husband the dishful of roast potatoes, the two of you informed your guests that they were in actual fact going to become grandparents for the first time.

Especially when you had barely begun to grasp the concept entirely yourself.

Indeed, Carrie was only just beginning to get used to the fact that she and Teddy were a married couple. They had, admittedly, been married for some four months, but for half of that time they had been sleeping in Teddy's bedroom back at his parents' house because they had been waiting to move into their own home. It hadn't really seemed like being married until they were out from underneath Remus and Dora's feet. Their first home as a married couple was a small but comfortable terrace house several roads away from Remus and Dora's house, just a few minutes walk from Eddington High Street. It consisted of a large sitting room that doubled up as a dining room and a tiny little kitchen in which it was difficult to fit more than two people at a time. The stairs, tucked away at the side of the main room, led up to a large master bedroom, modest bathroom and a couple of smaller single bedrooms, one of which was currently used as a study. The whole house had been nicely decorated, yet it had taken a little while for it all to feel like home. Then there had been a happy month where everything had finally seemed to be slotting into place, life seemed utterly perfect and stable...

And then Carrie had discovered that she was pregnant.

It had all come as a bit of a shock, though when she stopped to think about it Carrie supposed she had no real reason to be surprised, and though she was definitely pleased by the news (whilst Teddy was ecstatically excited by it all), Carrie had spent the past few days feeling rather numb, as if it wasn't entirely real...

She was frightened.

She didn't really feel ready to be a mother. A muggle mother to a no doubt magical child, no less. What if she wasn't any good at it? What if she didn't have that miraculous maternal instinct people always went on about, what if the baby simply screamed and bawled every time she picked it up? What if she was absolutely clueless? And what if the baby knew it?

Being pregnant was trauma enough, and she still had months and months of that to endure. It wasn't the morning sickness or the prospect of swollen ankles and other unpleasantries that had Carrie worried.

It was simply the thought of it. The thought of there being an actual human being, a brand new life within her, growing bigger and stronger day by day, being nurtured, a precious, priceless treasure...

_You just don't understand_, she'd tell Teddy every so often when he attempted to dismiss this apprehension. _You wouldn't do, you've never been pregnant! It's never going to happen to you!_

_Nothing in the world is ever going to be so completely and utterly dependent on you. Nothing so delicate and perfect..._

It would be a relief, in some ways, when Dora found out about the baby. She would understand entirely, Carrie was certain. She would know what to say, what to do, how to make Carrie feel better. After all she had been pregnant too.

Twice.

It was memories of the abrupt and traumatic end to Dora's second pregnancy that had been plaguing Carrie's thoughts ever since she had found out that she was pregnant herself. Barely a night had passed that week without Carrie suffering dreadfully disturbing nightmares of the wretched scene she had witnessed so many years ago when she had been just twelve years old.

_Nothing like that'll happen to you_, Teddy would tell her most nights when she reached to shake him awake. _Nothing bad will happen, trust me, Sweetheart_.

Carrie wasn't sure if she could trust him. How could he possibly know something like that? What did he know about miscarriages? How on earth could he tell her not to worry?!

"Are you alright, Sweetheart? You've gone dreadfully pale." Teddy said, and Carrie was snapped abruptly out of her thoughts.

"I'm...I'm fine." the muggle mumbled, hastily giving the tablecloth a firm tug to straighten it, only for Teddy appear behind her, reaching to slide his arms around her, hands coming to rest upon her stomach.

"Why don't you sit down a while?" he suggested, pausing to press a kiss to the top of her head. "And I'll finish setting the table."

"We've only got half an hour..." Carrie reminded him impatiently, giving herself a little shake and attempting to step out of his grasp, only for his grip around her to tighten.

"You know," he told her calmly, face buried in her hair, "they'll probably be late. They're raiding a load of shops in Knockturn Alley this week, it's been all over the Prophet. Mum'll never be home from the Ministry on time..."

"She said they'd be here at seven. She wouldn't have said that if they couldn't!"

"Calm down, love! Honestly, nobody cares if dinner's a few minutes late. If Mum was cooking it it'd probably get burnt and we'd end up going hungry the entire evening! This is nothing in comparison! Now come on, sit down and put your feet up...pick some names out of that book!"

Reluctantly, Carrie shot the table one last despairing glance before allowing Teddy to guide her slowly over towards the sofa, where he made a show of plumping up the cushions and arranging them so precisely that they might very well have constituted art. Retrieving the book of baby names from the floor where Teddy had abandoned it earlier, Carrie consented to flopping down upon the sofa, opening the book at a random page.

"I'm not sure I want to just...pick a name out of a book." she admitted after several minutes of staring blankly at the endless list.

"Why not?" Teddy asked as he set about placing the place mats upon the table, and before she could explain he suggested: "We won't just pick any name. We'll pick a meaningful one...something that means something to us."

This hadn't been what Carrie had meant at all. It wasn't that she was against simply picking a name out of a book because it sounded nice, it was more that she didn't want to do that now.

It was just much too early to be thinking about things like that.

Naming the baby so soon would simply make everything far more real. There would be far more to lose.

Because Dora would not have felt such an all consuming, intense loss, Carrie was sure, if she had simply lost a baby.

It must have been far worse to have lost baby Rae.

No, names were much too risky, much to frightening...

And yet Carrie allowed herself to consider Teddy's words, because after all it was mere consideration and nothing else.

"We should name a girl after you." Teddy said, grinning broadly at the thought. "After all that's practically tradition. I've got my dad's name, he has his dad's name, Mum has Gran's name..."

"I want to name her after you mum." Carrie decided, stretching her legs out in front of her and yawning widely. "Because there's power in a name, you know. It's like magic. It's...like a reminder. And your mum is my perfect reminder. I want our child to have character, to stick to it, to stick to her morals and beliefs and be strong. And when she feels weak, or when she feels unsure of herself I want her to have that name. So she knows that she can have nerves of steel if she tries. That she can be or do anything if she can stand up and be counted for it."

Teddy paused in he arranging of cutlery to offer her a bright smile.

"Well she'd better have the name then." he said, holding his wife's gaze for a long moment before quirking an eyebrow and returning to his task, smile widening into a rather mischievous grin. "Caroline Nymphadora it is, then. I'll let you break the news to Mum, shall I? It was your idea, not mine, and I don't want to get hexed for letting That Bloody Name, as she calls it, live on to blight a new generation..."

"_Dora_," Carrie laughed, letting the book fall to her lap as she slumped back in her seat in amusement. "Just _Dora_, Ted!"

"Thank Merlin," Teddy murmured, giving an exaggerated sigh of relief. "Because she'd take the baby off us and insist on raising it herself if we called it Nymphadora. She'd think us unfit parents..."

Carrie squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to stop laughing.

"Then again if you want a daughter with character...it is without doubt a character building name..."

"Just Dora! Dora Caroline. And then...her own first name."

"Two Carries would be awfully confusing."

"Precisely."

"And for a boy?"

"After his father, of course. And his grandfather."

"What if...it's _twins_?"

Carrie felt abruptly dizzy at the mere notion.

"It's not." she insisted, squeezing her eyes even more tightly shut.

"But you've got twins in your family, so..."

"We're not having twins! Go and check the pie isn't burning!"

As Teddy obediently disappeared into the kitchen to check on dinner, Carrie reached to press her hands over her face, sighing heavily.

She remained that way for a long while, emotionally drained by an evening that had yet to really begin, sliding down to lie flat upon her back. For a while she simply lay listening to the sounds of Teddy moving about the kitchen and setting things down upon the dining table, and she felt increasingly drowsy, his movements seemed somewhat...far away...

She woke abruptly at the sound of the front door being pushed shut, and at the sound of voices out in the hallway, Carrie hurriedly scrambled up into a sitting position, heart hammering in panic in her chest.

Dinner! Merlin, what if Teddy had burnt it?!

When had she fallen asleep? She hadn't meant to fall asleep, for goodness sake and there was so much still to do and now it was too late and...

"Alright, Carrie love?"

At the sound of Dora's greeting from the doorway, Carrie very nearly jumped a foot in the air.

"Hi!" she exclaimed a little breathlessly, shuffling a little until she was sitting straighter in her chair, only to spot the book lying upon her lap. She hastily reached to shove it under the nearest cushion as her mother-in-law offered her a raised eyebrow.

"Long day, was it?" the Auror asked as her son appeared at her elbow. "Me too, might join you and have a nap myself. Let these two do some work for a change..."

Carrie managed a rather nervous chuckle, pushing the book further behind the cushion and wincing ever so slightly as Dora came to sit down beside her.

"Actually," Dora admitted, reaching to rake a hand through her hair which today was a carefully crafted mix of dark, leafy green and muddy brown as if she were attempting some form of camouflager. "I don't think anybody's had the most of relaxing days, have they Remus love?"

As he reached to set a large glass bowl of vibrant fruit salad down in the middle of the table, Remus puffed his cheeks rather wearily and agreed:

"No, not really." Offering Teddy an exasperated look the werewolf explained: "We woke up to find the water pipe had burst in the bathroom this morning, we've had water coming through the sitting room ceiling!"

"Merlin..." Teddy muttered despairingly, and Dora agreed:

"It's an awful mess! Still, Dad's spent the day getting drenched, I've spent the day being shouted and sworn at by a lovely bunch of angry hags down Knockturn, Carrie's utterly knackered...I don't know about them but it's left me utterly starving!"

"Carrie's made chicken and leek pie for dinner." Teddy said as he headed for the kitchen to retrieve the food in question. "And we've got roast potatoes, carrots, broccoli and peas."

"You're a smarter man than me, Ted." Remus told his son as Dora and Carrie rose from the sofa to sit at the table. "If only I'd married somebody as good a cook as Carrie..."

"If I was a good cook it would be an entire waste!" Dora protested as they took their seats. "I'm never home early enough to cook you dinner anyway!"

As the discussion rapidly deteriorated into teasing and bickering and Teddy set about levitating the dishes of food out from the kitchen, Carrie tried her best to relax. Tried to pretend it was just another perfectly normal family dinner...

She wondered when there would be a good pause in the usual conversations about friends, relatives, work and other mundane things to make the grand announcement. She wondered how precisely to word it...

She wanted Teddy to do it. Remus and Dora were, after all, _his_ parents, he ought tell them. Especially since Carrie was becoming increasingly convinced that she couldn't do it herself. Of course she was sure that both Remus and Dora would be utterly thrilled by the news, in fact she could not possibly imagine them being anything else if she tried...

And yet she couldn't tell them herself. She simply...couldn't.

She told Teddy so when they had squeezed into the kitchen some time later to pile up the remnants of dinner and fetch bowls and spoons for pudding.

"You have to tell them, Ted. I can't. I wouldn't know what to say."

"It's not a terribly complicated idea, Sweetheart." Teddy chuckled, and at the look she shot him he reached to put his arms around her with a smile. "Don't worry," he told her, leaning to press a firm kiss to her lips. "I'll tell them straight after pudding."

Before long the fruit salad had been eaten and the four of them retreated to sit upon the sofas before the fireplace, and Dora had retrieved the last of the wine from the kitchen.

"D'you want a glass, Remus?"

"Mm."  
"Ted?"

"Please."

Carrie felt her cheeks warming to be asked in turn, wondering if Dora would think it odd when she declined, or indeed if she had noticed that the muggle had been drinking orange juice all evening...

But to her surprise, Dora simply didn't ask. Instead she concluded:

"That's the last of it! Good wine, Ted. Where'd you get it?"

Carrie slumped back against Teddy's side in relief and as he reached to slide his arm around her shoulders Teddy recalled:

"It's muggle. It was left over from a party at Cleo's house."

When offered a glass from his mother, Teddy accepted it and took a large gulp, before leaning to set it down upon the coffee table, before urging his parents to do the same.

"I've got to tell you both something important." he explained, grip upon Carrie tightening a little. "Exciting, even. And I don't want you to get over-excited and splash red wine all over my sofa, Mum."

Dora's expression was an odd mixture of amusement and something vaguely akin to offence.

"I wouldn't do that!" she protested, only for Remus to pluck the glass from her hand and set both his and her glasses down upon the table. Once relieved of her burden, however, the witch fidgeted excitedly and asked: "Go on then! What is it?"

"And if you've been having some sort of...of _bet_ going on about what I'm about to tell you...I'll send you home in disgrace and I'll finish the wine off myself! Alright?"

Despite her nerves, Carrie felt tempted to laugh at this notion, for when it came to her relationship with Teddy it did seem that Remus and Dora always had some sort of bet going on about one aspect or another; when they would start dating, when they would get married, how long their arguments would last, how long it would take them to decide upon a house to move into...

Surely betting on the arrival of a baby was natural progression...

"I'm sure we wouldn't do anything of the sort." Remus said, failing to sound even remotely innocent, and Teddy shot him a scowl.

"Well if you have, you can at least have the grace to pretend otherwise." Teddy insisted, and his parents exchanged a look.

"If you say so, love." Dora agreed at last, raising an infuriating eyebrow. At the look her son offered her, however, both she and Remus sobered, waiting patiently at long last. Dora even stopped fidgeting.

"Right..." Teddy said after a sizeable pause, drawing in a deep breath and eventually allowing himself to smile broadly. "Well, the thing is...Mum...Dad...Carrie and I have the most wonderful news to tell you!"

"_Really_?!" Dora said, managing to cram an impressive amount of sarcasm into just two short syllables, only for Remus to elbow her in the ribs.

"Be quiet." the werewolf murmured, but Carrie could have sworn that his lips twitched towards a smile.

"Yes Mum, _really_." Teddy agreed, ignoring her tone entirely. "So, I have a question for you both. How would you feel...what do you suppose you'd say...I mean...what do you think about...well..." he frowned deeply at becoming so tongue tied, and Dora helpfully suggested:

"Try again, Ted."

"Shh." Remus insisted as his son drew in a fresh breath to do as his mother suggested.

"How would you feel about being called Nana and Grandad?" Teddy asked at last.

There was a long pause.

Judging from Dora's earlier fidgeting and inability to be quiet, Carrie was quite prepared for the witch to let out a small shriek of surprise, or make some sort of noisy and excited reaction...

And yet to the muggle's surprise, both Dora and Remus' expressions remained remarkably serious.

Then the couple exchanged a look, frowning deeply.

"Nana..._hmmm_..."

"What do you think of that, Dora?"

"I'm not sure, Remus...might make me sound a bit old..."

"Well it's better than Gran or Grandma, I think it'll probably suit you a bit better..."

"You're fine with Grandad, right? Because, you know, there aren't all that many options...Grandpa, I suppose..."

"No, I think Grandad is fine..."

And with that they both nodded rather solemnly at one another, then turned back to look at Carrie and Teddy, and Dora said:

"Yep, we're fine with that, aren't we?"

"Yes. Absolutely fine." Remus agreed, nodding again.

There was another long pause.

Carrie took in their dead pan expressions in bewilderment.

She ought have known, she thought to herself as Teddy's face contorted into a deep frown. Attempting to guess Remus and Dora's reactions to things like this was always rather useless. They were so absurdly unpredictable...

But this was something else. It was...ridiculous!

"Is...is that it?" Teddy asked at last, and Carrie could have sworn that Remus was biting his tongue against a smile.

Suddenly, Dora grinned.

"Word of advice, Carrie love," the Auror said, leaning forward in her seat a little, dark eyes dancing with amusement. She nodded towards the pillow at Carrie's side, causing the muggle to glance sideways at it to see the spine of the book poking out from behind it. "Try and hide the baby names book from me _before_ I come into the room next time. That way I might not spot you slipping it under the cushion, and I might not take a peek at it whilst you and Ted are busy serving pudding in the kitchen."

Carrie felt her face flood with colour, and with that both Dora and Remus dissolved into laughter, she slumping back against him upon the sofa.

"Bloody Aurors!" Teddy muttered, "Why d'you have to be so ridiculously observant?!" And with that, he too laughed, reaching to hug Carrie to him as Dora at last exclaimed:

"Sweet Merlin, we're going to be GRANDPARENTS!" When throwing her arms around her husband and hugging him tightly didn't quite seem to squash her sudden rush of excitement, the witch leapt to her feet and reached to fling her arms around the pair upon the other sofa instead, exclaiming: "Come here and give me a hug, for goodness sake! A baby! An actual baby...!"

"As opposed to a pretend one?" Remus wondered through a broad grin as Teddy disentangled himself from Carrie in order to throw his arms so tightly around his mother that she very nearly lost her balance, only for Carrie to demand to know:

"What're you doing still sat over there?!" She slipped free of Dora's haphazard hold and got to her feet as Remus too rose from his seat. The muggle felt somewhat relieved at the far more sober, yet firm hug that the werewolf bestowed upon her a moment later, and she buried her face in the front of his jumper with a heavy sigh.  
"It's wonderful news, Carrie." he told her as Dora sat down in Carrie's vacated seat so that she could more easily attempt to hug Teddy to death, the witch telling her son the same thing in far more words that she spoke excitedly at at least a hundred syllables per second.

"You're pleased?" Carrie asked, not quite sure why she felt a little anxious to ask, and Remus assured her:

"Pleased? Of course I'm pleased, Carrie, I'm ecstatic! It's the absolutely best news I can possibly imagine!"

For a glorious half an hour after that Carrie found that suddenly the prospect of having a baby seemed wonderfully exciting and brilliant and she quite forgot how nervous she was, listening to Remus and Dora's recollections of Teddy as a baby, talking about all manner of things from what colour to paint the nursery to what the chances were of the metamorphmagi genes being passed on to a third generation.

It was not until she was alone with Dora in the sitting room whilst Remus and Teddy finished clearing away in the cramped little kitchen that her earlier worries began to resurface. Carrie glanced sideways at Dora, who was sat next to her, gazing thoughtfully up at the ceiling. The witch's face had grown flushed from a mixture of euphoria and wine, and she seemed to be growing increasingly sleepy after the evening's excitement and the long day beforehand. After a long moment, the Auror's gaze darted sideways to glance at the muggle, before she said:

"Something's wrong."

It wasn't really a question, which made Carrie feel quite relieved. She settled back in her seat, drawing in a deep breath before she mumbled:

"Can I ask you about...something?"

Dora continued her contemplation of the ceiling for a long moment before consenting to gracing Carrie with her full attention.

"About what, love?" she asked, and Carrie reached to fiddle worriedly with the hem of her jumper.

It was difficult. More difficult than she had first imagined, even.

There had not been talk of Dora's miscarriage for years, indeed Carrie herself had never dared bring the subject up. Not even when she had visited Dora when she had been discharged from the hospital, not even when Carrie had wanted to tell her how sorry she was for her loss...

Dora had started that conversation for her, back then.

Carrie felt somewhat wretched that she wished the witch would do the same again.

"It's alright to be scared, you know." Dora told her eventually with a knowing smile. "We all get scared, especially the first time. It's entirely natural."

"What about..." Carrie began, only to trail off, not quite sure what to say, and at the questioning look she was offered she felt utterly dreadful when all she managed was: "What if...like Baby Rae...?"

Dora's gaze dropped to her lap, drawing in a deep breath, her hands coming to fold carefully atop her stomach.

The witch sighed heavily.

"Oh Carrie," she said, looking back up the muggle with a small, sad smile. "That's not going to happen to you, love! Nothing like that'll happen to you!"

"How do you know?" Carrie asked bleakly.

"Because!" Dora insisted, pausing to bite her lip and sigh again. "Because you're not me, Carrie. You're not going to be so...so bloody careless! And you're certainly not going to be apparating out of...out of a building in the middle of a bloody wizards' duel! I must say though, if you did manage that somehow I'd be massively impressed...!"

The muggle gave a laugh, feeling suddenly rather stupid. But once Dora had gone back to frowning into her lap, the muggle asked:

"But what if I...what if I fall down the stairs! Or...or what if I trip over a chair leg and..."

"What if, what if!" Dora cried, reaching to throw an arm around the muggle's shoulders. "You've never fallen down the stairs in your entire life, what on earth makes you think you might start now?! What's the use of what ifs, Carrie? Let's just decide that the chances of any of that happening are massively slim! I mean look at me...clumsiest woman on the planet and I carried Teddy for nine months without a problem! I was pregnant during the Battle of the Seven Potters, for Merlin's sake! How in Merlin's name I persuaded Remus to let me show up at Privet Drive that day is a bloody mystery, but I did! And I was fine! Pregnant women might be a tad delicate, Carrie, but they're not made of glass!"

Carrie allowed herself to be eased sideways until her head came to rest upon the Auror's shoulder, and Dora's eyes drifted closed as she admitted:

"I ought've thought about you more back then, you know. You were only young, you'd been through enough already and then to...to witness what happened there on the driveway that night..." she sighed heavily, shaking her head as she recalled: "I didn't mean to scare you...to leave such an awful impression on you...but it was such an awful thing I lost my mind entirely..."

"It wasn't your fault." Carrie mumbled, teeth clenched against a shudder. "You were in agony, you'd have been mad to have thought of me for even a second."

Dora let out a disbelieving huff.

"The night it happened, perhaps yes." she muttered darkly. "But afterwards...weeks, months, years even. We ought have talked about it. Some things...I don't know what things, but some things ought to have been said. I feel numb, even now, when I think about Rae. I always will, I'm sure of it. But that doesn't matter. I should've talked to you anyway. You shouldn't think the way you're thinking, Carrie. You shouldn't be so frightened, I should've stamped that out years ago. Before it could be a problem."

Carrie felt the witch reach to grasp hold of her firmly by the arm, her expression growing abruptly stern.

"You listen to me, Carrie, and I mean _really_ listen." Dora instructed, and Carrie felt rather as if she were a child again, eagerly awaiting any small nugget of wisdom the witch had to offer. "You're young, you're perfectly healthy and you're absolutely, positively without a doubt _safe_. D'you hear? You're never alone, either, Remus is only a floo away during the day when Ted's at work, and if not there's Molly or Ginny...Fleur, even! Floo bloody Auror Headquarters if you really want to! Nothing awful will happen, love, and even if it did we're all here to take good care of you! I know Teddy's bloody useless, but Remus and I have had plenty of practice, eh?"

Carrie felt her spirits lifted a little, and as she gave a small nod she sniggered at thought that even now, grown up and expecting a child of her own, her childhood guardian angels still appeared to have her back. Amusing thought it was, it was also extremely comforting.

"So!" Dora said, cracking a grin. "All you've got to worry about is eating loads of ice cream and chocolate. Babies need that to grow, you know, that's a medical fact! Alright?"

"Alright..." Carrie agreed, feeling altogether cheered up at such a silly idea. It was odd that Dora being downright daft only seemed to make her own more serious worries seem rather silly too. She'd have to make a point of visiting the shops first thing the next morning, she decided, empty their freezers of any and all forms of chocolate ice cream...

As she shifted to get more comfortable, Carrie reached to retrieve the book of baby names from it's feeble excuse for a hiding place, and gazing down at it she gave a snigger.

"I can't believe you went and looked at this when I was in the kitchen!" she said, shooting the witch beside her a raised eyebrow.

"Couldn't help myself, really." Dora admitted, expression positively smug.

"Couldn't resist sticking your nose in!" Carrie scolded, grinning broadly.

Stifling a yawn into her sleeve before rising to her feet, Dora gave a remorseless shrug and admitted:

"I know, it was awful of me!" She offered the muggle an exaggerated wink as she added: "Merlin only knows who taught me a dreadful habit like that!"

And with that, as Dora turned to wander off towards the kitchen, Carrie's face grew positively pink.


End file.
